Living With Future Prosthetics

[Music] as technology advances prosthetic limbs are getting more sophisticated and more lifelike Bionic hands are advancing to the point that they can do many of the same tasks as a human hand but how do today's state-of-the-art prosthetics change the relationship between humans and technology are they just a useful tool what could they be considered a human enhancement motor technology is getting better and better all the time the big step forward is going to be improving that link with the body and also have feedback someone's got to pick it off and not have the cognitive load of thinking it's just got to become second nature I just consider myself a normal person that's lucky enough to have a bionic hand [Music] Nikki Asheville was born without her right hand and became the first woman in Britain to use an advanced prosthetic that's designed to be as lifelike as possible the hand is myoelectric which means it's controlled by contracting muscles in the arm to move the bionic fingers into different grips Nikki's always viewed herself as a one-handed person so I'm interested to find out if this new prosthetic has changed the way she sees herself or her relationship with technology so you were born without a hand is that right yeah I was born without my right hand and we don't really know why it's just the way I came out and I've found ways in life to adapt so that I feel like although I don't do everything in a way that other people would expect me to I find my own way and you've had a few different prosthetics before what was your first reaction when you heard about this new bionic and I was a bit skeptical to be honest I'm very well adapted to doing everything in my life with just one hand so the idea that I that there could be a technology out there that was good enough to make me change my ways and actually do things with two hands was not that convincing since I've got it though I have been won over it's got these different grip patterns that mean I can do things that I couldn't actually do before how long did it take to get used to it it took a while not because of the operating action that was really easy but what took awhile was overcoming that hurdle of relearning everything because I've spent so much of my life doing things with one hand or having my little adapted ways of doing things I had to make sure I had the patience to do things differently how does this bionic hand compared to some of your previous prosthetics these are ones I had as a child how old are you with that one that is tiny I think I had that at six months old but the idea was that I tried having two hands so that I could the doctors could see whether I would take to it or not and compared to these more kind of lifelike skin texture arms it does look very robotic I didn't choose how it looks but I'm actually far happier for it to look like this then two for it to try and imitate a real hand in its appearance because I'm not trying to fool anyone I'm not trying to say actually I have two hands it's more up front there's no hiding the hand Nicky uses is called the be Bionic small it's made by a company called steeper in Leeds which claims it uses technology from Formula One and Swiss watchmaking to make the hand as functional as possible I wanted to find out how the mechanics inside Mickey's hand worked and what predictions the engine is it's deeper had for the future of prosthetics so tell us about the be Bionic how does this differ from other prosthetics well traditionally if you get a myoelectric hand it's just generally an open and closed whereas you get incredibly high grip force in a small area so things like a wine glass or a piece of fruit is quite difficult to control whereas this has got five digits that all drive in independently so it can wrap around and give a really complying grip the other thing that the hands are doing that makes it look very natural is each of the fingers are tracking the other safe ones going through slow every 50 milliseconds they check where each are and adjust to get a perfect grip the tripod grip which is the thumb and two fingers coming together that's quite difficult to do and it's taken a few generations of hands to get it absolutely perfect what do you imagine the prosthetic hand in five years time or ten years time would look like I think 10 to 15 maybe growing them back you know I think there's going to be a cure you can see real advances in that those sort of building organic systems over printed structures so there's like ear structures and things already been made hand is very very complex but you know in that time frame I imagine we might be more biologically integrated than we are now I wanted to try one of the myoelectric hands for myself by strapping a couple of electrodes to my arm I could control it by flexing and relaxing my muscles these are just electrodes just like chosen what they do is pick up the electrical impulses from the surface of your skin when you move your muscles I'm going to plug you in to the hand so if you just move your hand forward for me Wow there we go and maybe your hand backwards again so that's one grip you've got there which is what we call key grip for holding a key card something so if you close the hand again you can see you could hold a a here a credit card or something in that grip there I thought it would take a while to get used to but I seem to be able to do it straight away can you imagine this ever being better than a human hand or having different functions well it could do we could have lots of different formations make it like a Swiss Army knife and have firm all sorts of tools and gadgets and gizmos and stuff hidden and hidden in their fingers but the question is should we do that should we make something that is that is better than a human hand while the hands very advanced it's clear we still have a way to go until technology catches up with evolution but it's not hard to imagine the prosthetics of the future offering functionality beyond the human body at an event in London Nicky joined a panel to discuss the future of prosthetics and whether a hand like hers could be considered a human enhancement do you feel enhanced no I feel different this is me with my robot hand on and then sometimes I mean without it on I mean compared to the guy I was when I lost my arm I'm not enhanced I'm not a cyborg if you say are you disabled and I would say no I'm differently abled and you know I am I'm different yes Nigel uses an older version of the V Bionic hand unlike Nicky he was born with two hands but lost one in an accident what has it meant to you having a past the voice started to be filled a psychiatrist said to me one time just before I got this where do you see is helping the year or so sitting in the field somewhere out in my car with a hose pipe attached to the exhaust that's all I could see so it is for you it's it's making up for something you thought you lost it's given me a life when I did you think I'd have one for Nigel the hand has dramatically changed his life but Nicky is keen not to become too dependent on the technology do you still consider yourself a one-handed person or is this like your own hand no I do still consider myself a one-handed person because that's why I was for nearly 30 years and however I appreciate that I now also consider this as part of me somebody that I kind of just met started touching the hand touching the fingers and I got that reaction of what you're doing what are you touching me and I think that says to me that I've accepted it as part of my body have you seen the arms that are kind of brain controlled and that kind of thing has that ever appealed to you I've yeah I've seen them heard about them I think anything that's got some sort of permanent wiring doesn't really appeal to me I find this one easy enough to control as it is I don't really need to control it with my mind I'm already going you know what open-hand easy I don't need anymore integration into my body than that [Music] having a bionic hand has changed hanneke does things but what's most interesting is how it's changed her sense of self to her the hand is more than a gadget but it's not part of her body as possibilities for human enhancement advance the main challenge may not be the technology but how we relate to it and how it changes our perspective and what it is to be human you

Channel: Motherboard

Views: 585,005

Rating: 4.9309402 out of 5

Keywords: motherboard, motherboardtv, vice, vice magazine, documentary, science, technology, cyborg, bionic, transhumanism, future, human body, biohacking, robots, Nicky Ashwell, prosthetics, Ted Varley, Steeper, Bebionic Small, bionic arm, bionic limb, enhancement, health, robotics, bionic hand, superhuman, humans+

Id: 1gIIega50To

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 25 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/PMTITS_4BadJokes]

I wouldn't consider it an enhancement either. But that is because it doesn't enhance anything. It just simply not as good as a normal hand, but that can change in the future to the point where it is considered an enhancement.